Question I want to completely disable overclocking

[decayer177]

I recently just built a computer and the motherboard is honestly confusing me.

Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600x
GPU: AMD RX 580
RAM: Corsair Vengence 16gb (2x8gb) 3000MHz DDR4 [set at default 2133Mhz by motherboard]

The only bios settings I did was I disabled Performance Boost overdrive (was setting my CPU at 6Ghz on a stock cooler) and I enabled Cool'n'Quiet. In windows, I set my power plan to default Windows Balanced (Ryzen balanced didn't show up despite chipset drivers being installed).

My question is how do I turn off OC completely? I'm on stock cooling and I want my processor stay within its box specifications of 3.6Ghz (4.2Ghz turbo) with standard voltages. Even with Overdrive off, hardwareID occasionally reports around 4.258ghz and 1.475v (CPU VDD). VID #5 has hit 1.494v as a max.

All help would be appreciated and I can post more details if needed. I'm new to all of this. I don't know what is and isn't normal for my processor.

Uodate:
Core 0 1 and 5 have hit 4.629ghz and my turbo frequency is only supposed to be 4.2ghz.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you reset the BIOS to the factory default settings by removing the CMOS battery, what it sets to after that WILL be the factory default settings including default boost behavior.

There is no need to "turn off" overclock settings, since they are only "on" if you turn them on. There are no systems that "automatically" overclock on their own without you telling them to. I'd do the following.

Power off the unit, switch the PSU off and unplug the PSU cord from either the wall or the power supply.

Remove the motherboard CMOS battery for five minutes. During that five minutes, press the power button on the case for 30 seconds. After the five minutes is up, reinstall the CMOS battery making sure to insert it with the correct side up just as it came out.

Now, plug the power supply cable back in, switch the PSU back on and power up the system. It should display the POST screen and the options to enter CMOS/BIOS setup. Enter the bios setup program and reconfigure the boot settings for either the Windows boot manager or for legacy systems, the drive your OS is installed on if necessary.

Save settings and exit. If the system will POST and boot then you can move forward from there including going back into the bios and configuring any other custom settings you may need to configure such as Memory XMP profile settings, custom fan profile settings or other specific settings you may have previously had configured that were wiped out by resetting the CMOS.

 

[decayer177]

What I meant by "automatically" overclock was the Tomahawk board has all CPU settings set to Auto including Precision Boost Overdrive which pretty much allows the processor to exceed specifications. HWMonitior originally reported speeds in excess of 6GHz. When I disabled overdrive, the processor still exceeds specifications, just not as bad. The Ryzen 5 2600x is supposed to be 3.6GHz (4.2GHz turbo), but HardwareID reports some of the cores reaching 4.629GHz with a voltage of 1.494v. As I am new to everything, I'm unaware as to whether or not this is normal behavior. I am unaware as to if the couple of cores reaching mentioned speeds is normal because I am unaware whether or not MSI's motherboard and/or the processor base their clock speeds on all the cores or just an average of the six.

 

[decayer177]

Picture added to further explain. By no means is 5ghz+ default specifications and I haven't done anything to my setup with the exception of disabling Precision Boost Overdrive.

 

[Darkbreeze]

HWmonitor is wrong. NO CPU EVER, automatically boosted to that speed. It couldn't, and it wouldn't if it could. It would take extreme manual setttings, the highest quality motherboard and liquid nitrogen to even get near 6Ghz for a few seconds.

That's just about the worst piece of crap utility that there is, next to Speccy. Let me give you my reasoning for this. This is my standard copy pasta on the subject.

Monitoring software​

HWmonitor, Open hardware monitor, Realtemp, Speccy, Speedfan, Windows utilities, CPU-Z, NZXT CAM and most of the bundled motherboard utilities are often not the best choice as they are not always accurate. Some are actually grossly inaccurate, especially with certain chipsets or specific sensors that for whatever reason they tend to not like or work well with. I've found HWinfo or CoreTemp to be the MOST accurate with the broadest range of chipsets and sensors. They are also almost religiously kept up to date.

CoreTemp is great for just CPU thermals including core temps or distance to TJmax on older AMD platforms.

HWinfo is great for pretty much EVERYTHING, including CPU thermals, core loads, core temps, package temps, GPU sensors, HDD and SSD sensors, motherboard chipset and VRM sensor, all of it. When starting HWinfo after installation, always check the box next to "sensors only" and de-select the box next to "summary".


Run HWinfo and look at system voltages and other sensor readings.

Monitoring temperatures, core speeds, voltages, clock ratios and other reported sensor data can often help to pick out an issue right off the bat. HWinfo is a good way to get that data and in my experience tends to be more accurate than some of the other utilities available. CPU-Z, GPU-Z and Core Temp all have their uses but HWinfo tends to have it all laid out in a more convenient fashion so you can usually see what one sensor is reporting while looking at another instead of having to flip through various tabs that have specific groupings, plus, it is extremely rare for HWinfo to not report the correct sensor values under the correct sensor listings, or misreport other information. Utilities like HWmonitor, Openhardware monitor and Speccy, tend to COMMONLY misreport sensor data, or not report it at all.

After installation, run the utility and when asked, choose "sensors only". The other window options have some use but in most cases everything you need will be located in the sensors window. If you're taking screenshots to post for troubleshooting, it will most likely require taking three screenshots and scrolling down the sensors window between screenshots in order to capture them all.

It is most helpful if you can take a series of HWinfo screenshots at idle, after a cold boot to the desktop. Open HWinfo and wait for all of the Windows startup processes to complete. Usually about four or five minutes should be plenty. Take screenshots of all the HWinfo sensors.

Next, run something demanding like Prime95 version 26.6 or Heaven benchmark. Take another set of screenshots while either of those is running so we can see what the hardware is doing while under a load.

*Download HWinfo


For temperature monitoring only, I feel Core Temp is the most accurate and also offers a quick visual reference for core speed, load and CPU voltage:

*Download Core Temp

 

[decayer177]

Here's the HWinfo results while idling:

Here's the results while running Prime95 26.6:

In other news, is this max temperature normal while running the stress test?

 

[Karadjgne]

Yep. P95 runs a consistent 100% load using the same instruction sets that games use. It's an absolute worst possible case situation and a perfect baseline. All your temps will be under that, unless you use some specialized production apps. Most heavy gaming doesn't exceed @ 70% loads, but don't confuse that with usage. You can be at 55% usage and still be at a 70% load, usage only applies to how much of the cpu the game code requires, not how hard its being pushed.

If you look at the numbers, the cpu under 100% loads actually downclocks to 3.83GHz at all cores. It's only during initial startup that it'll see full boost capacity of 4.25GHz on 0-2 cores and 4.18GHz on 3-5 cores. Entirely normal and expected behavior.

 

[Darkbreeze]

That max temp is still above what I'd like to see, which is 80°C.

Is it enough to create serious problems, or will it be likely to reach that under normal circumstances. No, it's not LIKELY, but it's certainly possible. There is a reason we do this testing and second guessing the guidelines that we've established are no different than saying we quarantine people for X disease but we're going to let you through because you PROBABLY won't infect anybody, due to the fact that you are LIKELY in the post infectious stage. It's just bad policy.

If you exceed the recommended temp then something is not sufficient when it comes to the cooling configuration. As far as the clock speeds, everything looks normal there. I do not see any issues and I certainly dont' see anything trying to go to 6Ghz like HWmonitor was telling you, or even exceeding the 4250mhz single core boost speed that we'd expect to see. All looks normal other than a SLIGHTLY higher than desirable max temp, which as mentioned was probably only very briefly but to me, is still above where I'd want to see things because if it CAN do it briefly, it CAN do it extensively as well if the right type of extended load comes along. Whether the CPU protective behavior which adjusts boost properties correctively controls that or not is another story but the fact that you SEE that number could mean that a tweak to the cooling or some improvements wouldn't be a bad idea.

I'd certainly like to see the min/max/average core temp sensor values during a 15 minute run of Prime95, but I don't see the core temp values listed in any of your screenshots except the one slice of temp you posted a concern about.

 

[decayer177]

Prior to starting the stess test:

5 minutes into the stress test:

10 minutes into the stress test:

15 minutes/just before ending the stress test:

Things worth noting:

• It hit 80 degrees about 3 minutes in
• It hit 80 again just after the screenshot was taken 5 minutes in
• It hit 80 degrees a third time 8 minutes in

All of these times it held 80 degrees for 45-60 seconds prior to dropping back down into high 70s

• It hit 83 degrees for a split second 11 minutes in.

All screenshots were of CoreTemp and HWInfo. The split up of core temp values was only ever listed in HWMonitor, which has been uninstalled prior to any of these tests due to the inaccuracy.

 

[Finstar]

Lol, reminds me of my old B350 Tomahawk that gave my 1700 1.44v on stock settings and cooling.
Never buy Msi products people.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Anybody who knows me on here, totally knows that I agree with Finstar on the idea of avoiding MSI motherboards. Their graphics cards are ok. Never seen any glaring quality control or performance issues on those, at least no more than on other brands. On motherboards, not the same story. They have a history, and it got better for a while, and then it started reverting to their old form again at some point.

Are you using the stock cooler? I asked about hardware, but still don't see any answers on that front?

 

[decayer177]

Yes, I'm using a stock cooler. Here are my specs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600x (stock cooler)
GPU: AMD RX 580
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 3000Mhz
Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk

I have 6 case fans plugged into the molex connector on my power supply. They are not connected to the motherboard.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Well, with six case fans running full speed, there shouldn't be any kind of thermal issues as far as case airflow is concerned, unless there is a problem with the orientation configuration of the fans. I would never advise using molex powered fans because it would drive me nucking futs having one fan running full speed all the time, much less six of them. Those should definitely be connected to the motherboard fan headers but you'll likely need a couple of splitters in order to connect them all and control them through the BIOS.

More important, for now anyhow, would be to check the orientation of those fans. Each of them. Make certain that any front, bottom or side fans are configured as intake. That means, either the arrows on the fan frame (Which you can find if you look for them on the frame of the fan) should be pointing towards the inside of the case, or easier to check would be that the side of the fan that does not have the framework with the motor attached to it, so the side that is open to the fan blades, is facing out, and that the fan is moving air into the case.

On the exhaust, it should be exactly the opposite. Rear and top mounted fans should be mounted so that the fan blades are facing into the case and the motor side of the fan is facing towards the outside, blowing out. The only deviation from that configuration should be on some few specialty cases, or cases that are very old with top mounted power supplies.

What model are those fans? Can you post some pictures of all the fans where they are mounted, and what case do you have?